Digital Libraries InitiativesDigital Libraries Initiativesin Belarusin Belarus

Liudmila Kiriukhina, Deputy Director of the National Library of Belarus; email: kiryukhina@nacbibl.org.by

Piotr Lapo, Director of the Belarusian State University Library, President of the Belarusian Library

Association email: lapo@bsu.by

Territory 207,000 km2

Population 9,990,400 70% of population are urban Belarus is divided into six regions Belarusian and Russian are official state

languages Minsk - the capital of Belarus The distance from Minsk to Warsaw is 500 km, to Moscow -

700 km, to Berlin - 1060 km, to Vienna - 1300 km.

Republic of BelarusRepublic of Belarus

Belarusian LibrariesBelarusian Libraries The National Library of Belarus 7 Republican research libraries 6 Oblast (regional) libraries 4,725 Public libraries 4,362 Academic libraries 450 Special libraries of industrial enterprises 170 Medical libraries 100 Agricultural libraries 26 Libraries of the National Academy of

Sciences of Belarus 12 Sport libraries

Belarusian LibrariesBelarusian Libraries

11,5 thousand libraries250 mln. documents6 mln. readers180 mln. documents provided for

readers annually

The National Library of BelarusThe National Library of Belarus

Founded in 1922 About 8,000,000 items of keeping in 50 languages 3,000,000 documents provided for readers annually 500,000 national documents and Belarusica 90,000 rare and manuscripts 400,000 items of special collections (notes,

audiomaterials, maps, images) Staff – 560 people 180 personal computers united by LAN above 1,000,000 records in OPAC

NLB New BuildingNLB New Building

Stocks for 14,000,000 items2,000 readers’ placesConference-hall (500 places)Staff – 1,000 people

NLB DL ProjectsNLB DL ProjectsInternational Projects

– Under the aegis of UNESCODL of manuscripts (200 documents)DL of the Belarusian heraldry (1,000 images)DL “Radzivilliana” (Memory of Belarus)

– Thanks to support of the USA Embassy in Belarus

DL “Music heritage of Belarus” (10,000 gramophone records and tapes)

Other DL ProjectsOther DL Projects

International– VirLib – Open Archives Initiative

Local– Portal of the Republican Scientific Medical

Library (http://www.med.by/)– DL of the Belarusian State Medical

University Library

Virlib ProjectVirlib Project

Participants:– The Higher Technical School in Osnabruck

(Germany)– The Belarusian State University– The Belarusian State Economic University– The Belarusian State University of

Informatics and Radioelectronics

Electronic BelarusElectronic Belarus(2003-2005)(2003-2005)

Has Status of a National State ProgramGoals:

– Development of the republican telecommunications network

– Creation of the National Center of Digitalization (special collections, rare books, national prints, etc.)

– Development of the National corporate system of electronic documents delivery